Article for discussion 24th of April

The world is not enough for Google bosses

But it seems that, for Page and Schmidt, the world is no longer enough. The pair are now staking a claim for galactic domination by backing a plan to mine asteroids. Google's chief executive and executive chairman are named as key players in Planetary Resources Inc, which appears set to go boldly where no magnate has gone before.

The exact nature of the business will be revealed on Tuesday, but it appears Page and Schmidt are aiming high. "The company will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP," Planetary Resources said in a press release. "This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources'."

Others investing in the new business include Avatar director James Cameron; Ross Perot Jr, son of the former presidential candidate; and billionaire Microsoft alumnus Charles Simonyi, who has already made two trips to the International Space Station. The announcement comes just as scientists are embracing the idea of mining "near-Earth asteroids".

Earlier this month, a study by Nasa concluded that, for a cost of £1.6bn, robotic spacecraft could capture a 500-ton asteroid seven metres in diameter and bring it into orbit around the Moon to be explored and mined. The spacecraft would have a flight time of six to 10 years, and humans would be able to carry out the task by around 2025.

President Barack Obama has already talked of sending a manned mission to an asteroid by the same year, while Nasa is working on an unmanned mission, called Osiris-Rex, that would launch in 2016 and land on an asteroid, bringing a small chunk of it back to Earth by 2023.

The costs would be as eye-watering as a Martian atmosphere, but the potential rewards are vast. Large amounts of water, oxygen and metals could be extracted to help further space exploration by allowing humans to build space stations and fuel spacecraft. The resources could also be brought back to Earth to bolster diminishing reserves. And with the likes of the Google bosses on board, the project would appear to have plenty of financial support. Schmidt was awarded a compensation package worth £62m last year for shifting from CEO to executive chairman.

Planetary Resources was co-founded by Eric Anderson, a former Nasa Mars-mission manager, and Peter Diamandis, the commercial space entrepreneur behind the X-Prize competition,which offered £6m to a group that launched a reusable manned spacecraft.

The venture will be the latest foray into the far-flung for Cameron, who last month dived in a mini-submarine to the deepest spot in the Mariana Trench. It also has echoes of his 2009 science fiction blockbuster Avatar, which concerned mining on alien planets.

Planetary Resources will be the second billionaire-backed private space company to be announced within the past six months. In December, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen unveiled his new firm, Stratolaunch Systems, which plans to build the world's largest aircraft and use it as an air-based launch pad to send people into orbit.

Article for discussion 24th of April

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Has Science found the 'God Particle'?

Despite excited reports yesterday morning on the BBC that the particle has been "glimpsed", the Cern laboratory in Geneva yesterday merely confirmed that measurements by its £5bn Large Hadron Collider have come closer than previous searches to detecting the sub-atomic particle whose existence was first hypothesised in the 1960s.

Scientists said they have eliminated 95 per cent of the energy range where the Higgs may have been hiding, but are not yet ready to exclude the possibility that what they have detected is merely background noise rather than the real thing. They said that final, definite proof will now have to wait until 2012.

Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, head of Cern, urged: "Please be prudent. We have not found it yet. Stay tuned for next year."

Professor Themis Bowcock, head of particle physics at the University of Liverpool, said: "If the Higgs observation is confirmed, this really will be one of the discoveries of the century."

Dr Stephen Haywood, head of the Atlas Group at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, said: "This is what many of us have been working towards for 20 years. This is just the start."

Q&A: Key to the sub-atomic world

Q. What is the Higgs boson?

A. It is a sub-atomic particle, or "boson", that was first proposed theoretically in the 1960s by Professor Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University. He suggested that in order for matter to have mass, it must be influenced by a hypothetical particle that creates a field, called the Higgs field, which spreads throughout the Universe.

No one, however, was able to detect the Higgs boson because of the energy levels needed to collide other sub-atomic particle together in order to winkle it out.

Q. How does the Higgs work?

A. The most celebrated analogy is to compare the Higgs particle to a party activist as a famous politician, perhaps a former female Prime Minister, moves through a room full of activists all wishing to see or talk to her.

The movement of the politician is influenced by how many other people cluster around her. The Higgs particles are like these party activists and the former Prime Minister is like matter itself.

The more interaction there is between the Higgs particles and matter, the more mass that this particular matter possesses – and the heavier it is in gravity.

Q. Why is the Higgs particle so important?

A. To try to understand what is going on at the sub-atomic level, physicists have come up with a theory called the Standard Model. It explains three of the fundamental forces that interact at the nuclear level: the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. The Higgs particle is part of this Standard Model, which is why it was proposed in the first place. Frustratingly, though, it is the only boson or particle predicted by the Standard Model that has not so far been detected. This may be because it is difficult to detect (which is undoubtedly is) or that it doesn't exit.

Q. Why is the Higgs particle so difficult to find?

A. To find sub-atomic particles, it is necessary to collide other particles together at high energies using a machine such as the £5bn Large Hadron Collider, which accelerates sub-atomic particles called hadrons at 99.9999991 per cent of the speed of light. Sensitive detectors at the sites where the hadrons collide are then designed to monitor the tell-tale signs of a Higgs particle. There are two detectors or experiments trying to find the Higgs, one is called Atlas the other is called CMS and both are searching at similar energy levels. Unfortunately, there is a lot of "noise" coming from other particles and collisions that can mask the existence of the Higgs. Sophisticated statistical analysis is the only way of improving the certainty that a Higgs has truly been detected.

Q. What if the Higgs does not exist?

A. Then it would mean that the Standard Model is not correct, or at least not correct in the way it has been understood. Failing to find the Higgs has been said by CERN scientists to be an even more intriguing event than actually discoving its existence – although particle physicists would say that given that they have built a hugely expensive machine largely on the belief that it exists. The non-existence of the Higgs would mean that physicists would have to go back to the drawing board in terms of trying to understand what is going on at the sub-atomic level.

Article for discussion 24th of April

Freedom of speech does not protect rumors

(Xinhua)

08:15, April 12, 2012   

BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhua) -- As Chinese authorities crack down on various rumorsspreading online that put social stability at risk, some people have argued that suchrumors are protected under people's right to free speech.

However, rumors harm innocent individuals, filial harmony and social stabilityregardless of where or when they are spread, and rumors are completely irrelevant tothe concept of freedom of expression.

Some people say that truth will eventually prevail, so we need to take a laissez-faireattitude toward rumors in a bid to let them run their course and eventually fade away.

China, however, has seen a series of rumors recently that have spread quickly andhad far-reaching implications. The most recent example began on microblogs, wherean Internet user posted about military vehicles entering Beijing amid a major incident,suggesting a coup.

Fabricating information is different from spreading unconfirmed information, as the twoconcepts are driven by different intentions. How could freedom of speech be defendedif we turn our backs on slander? Can we tolerate fake of inferior products with the aimof promoting the free market?

Although wise people will not automatically accept rumors as the truth, in this era offast-spreading information, many rumors have hurt innocent individuals before havinga chance to be proven false. That's why most countries have laws or precedents toprevent or limit the dissemination of speech or ideas that, by their nature, carry thedanger of substantive harm.

For this reason, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., former associate justice of the U.S.Supreme Court, wrote in the famous Schenck case that "the most stringent protectionof free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing apanic."

Many judges and lawyers in China said that although the Internet is a virtual world, itsusers should assume the same legal responsibilities as they would in the real world.

"Free speech on the Internet cannot go without limits, as it should not infringe uponothers' legitimate rights, nor should it harm the real society," said Cheng Bin, a lawyerfrom Beijing-based Guandao Law Firm, adding that civilians should fulfill theirobligations of maintaining online order while enjoying their right to free speech.

Yue Cheng, a noted lawyer in China, said rumormongers should accept civic,administrative or even criminal liabilities according to the consequences of the rumorsthey perpetuate.

Chinese authorities have shut down 16 websites for "fabricating or disseminatingonline rumors," especially via microblog posts. Beijing police have arrested 1,065suspects and deleted more than 208,000 "harmful" online messages as part of anintensive nationwide crackdown on Internet-related crimes conducted since mid-February.

While cracking down on rumors that endanger public and state security, authoritiesshould also study the roots of rumors and public sentiment. A more open andtransparent government and the immediate issuance of relevant information couldimprove the government's credibility and better dispel rumors.